


in which wanren needs a soulmate

by Anonymous



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Matchmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 18:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14879384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: After a long, hard-fought battle, Itaru finally manages to worm his way into Banri's heart.("That's not how it happened," Banri says, elbowing Itaru off the couch and subsequently out of first place."That isliterallyhow it happened," Itaru retorts, tossing his controller aside completely in favor of wrestling Banri for his. "I have the security tapes to prove it.")





	in which wanren needs a soulmate

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for yami for the [Full Bloom Fan Letters](https://fullbloomfanletters.dreamwidth.org/) event.

Banri doesn’t exactly think of himself as a romantic, but if you asked him whether he believed in soulmates, he would have to say he did. Not just because he’s contractually obligated to, either - perhaps his definition of the word might stray from convention, but he does believe there’s something special about finding a person you’d like to share your life with.

Part of his naivete, as Itaru calls it, might be due to his upbringing. His older sister met her husband in high school and married him not long after. His parents were each other’s first partners, and for as long as he can remember they’ve been taking each other on weekly dates. It’s their thirtieth anniversary soon and they’re going to Guam for it. Banri wants to go to Guam. He only ever gets to go to Hawaii and that gets old after the first couple of times. He’s thinking of hitting up Kazunari or Azuma for travel plans at some point; Tenma has good taste in vacation spots too, but his schedule is ridiculous. That’s a famous actor for you.

Holidays aside, Banri’s main issue right now is that his job is sorely testing his long-held belief in soulmates. It’s also testing his patience, generosity, charisma, and general ability to serve customers better than anyone else in this building,  _especially_  Hyodo.

“Come on,” Itaru wheedles, sliding his phone across the table. “Look, I’ll even put the stickers on for you. Ta-da!”

“For the last time,” Banri grits out, pushing the phone back into Itaru’s pretty hands, “fictional characters do not have soulmates.”

“Have you no heart? Look at him,” Itaru says, flashing his phone in Banri’s face again. All Banri can see is the spectacular user rank indicating extreme overinvestment in what is essentially a tap-and-leave game. “He’s in  _love_ ,” Itaru insists. “You need to help me convince the world that Squiggly-kun is the best choice for my Wanren.”

“Why did you name it Wanren?!” Banri yelps, slapping the phone away. “Is that an insult? Did you come here just to insult me?”

Itaru stares at his phone. The corners of his mouth turn down, and Banri is almost conned into feeling guilty. “I thought he resembled you,” Itaru says finally. “See? Isn’t he cute?”

“That is a worm,” Banri seethes, well familiar with farming-and-sort-of-pet-raising game Warm! Working! Worms! (or W3! for short). A small part of him is yelling in excitement about how Itaru is calling him cute, in a very misguided and roundabout way, but Banri isn’t going to be moved by flattery.

“It’s a  _cute_  worm.” Itaru strokes Wanren, smiling in satisfaction when it squirms happily and spawns hearts all over the screen for him to collect.

Banri sighs and picks up his desk phone. “Tsuzuru! Can you please come and collect your co-worker?”

“Eh?” There’s the sound of rustling paper; Tsuzuru is always busy at reception; their company’s a decent size, but Banri suspects that Tsuzuru is the type of person to find himself overworked no matter where he goes. “You mean Itaru-san? I don’t want him back.”

“Oi,” Itaru protests, without much heat.

“Besides,” Tsuzuru continues, “he’s got a day off today, so I couldn’t come and collect him even if I wanted too. Sorry. Good luck!”

He hangs up before Banri can stutter out another desperate plea. Banri looks at Itaru, then down at the phone, then at the KAME-KICHI 2.0 in front of him. He looks back at Itaru, who stares back smugly.

“You have a day off.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not at home playing games?”

“The office Wi-Fi is better,” Itaru says carelessly, shrugging his hand. “Do you always talk to customers like this?”

Banri glares. “You’re a customer, are you?”

“How rude.” Itaru sticks out his bottom lip, and it really shouldn’t be a good look on a twenty-three-year-old man, but for some reason, somebody up there decided that this person was worth bestowing a face that could rival Helen of Troy on. “I’m a proper paying customer, so I’m expecting good service.”

He holds up his phone again, looking genuinely hopeful, and Banri - Banri hasn’t had enough coffee to deal with Itaru’s gorgeous face and ridiculous requests. He heaves a large sigh. “Hyodo!”

“Huuh? Don’t yell in the middle of work,” Hyodo growls, from the next cubicle.

“You want to be a good matchmaker, don’t you? You should take this case then; it’ll be good experience.”

Hyodo actually rolls his chair back to stare at him incredulously. “Don’t try and fob off your work onto me,” he growls (because Banri has worked at this company for exactly one year, and he has never personally witnessed Hyodo speaking in anything less than the most unprofessional growl). “I’ll tell Sakyo-san.”

“Tch.” He’s out of options. Banri swipes the phone and reluctantly sticks a circular patch on it. He tries to kick Itaru under the table, just to clarify that he still thinks this is an utter waste of time, but he's forgotten about those blasted divider things separating them and ends up whacking himself in the shin instead. “I’m just telling you in advance, but you know this isn’t going to work, right?”

“Well, there's no need to get so emotional about it," Itaru says, surprised. "Besides, you don’t know that for sure. Everyone says it’s some electrical impulse thing-y, right? If that's the case, electronic devices should have a signal too.”

It’s true that nobody knows how the KAME-KICHI 2.0 matchmaking lovetronic works. Nobody even knows where version 1.0 is, if it exists. According to the building manager, a suspicious-looking old guy in glasses, the machines just showed up in the storeroom one day with a note explaining how to use them. It’s one of the seven mysteries of this place, they’ve been told, but Banri doesn’t know what the other six are, either.

Now that he thinks about it, his job’s been pretty unreasonable for a while now.

If he had to hazard a guess, Banri would presume from the electrode-looking patches that the machine really is just a toy that measures electrical impulses. If it finds a compatible reading, it lights up with a squawk and flies around the cubicle; if not, it bites him on the finger and refuses to start again until he feeds it these disgusting sugar buns that only Hyodo can stomach.

The electrodes are supposed to be placed on any patch of bare skin, but Banri isn’t sure how that applies to Itaru’s phone, so he slaps them on the screen vaguely where Wanren the fictional worm is munching on some equally fictional dirt, puts his hand in KAME-KICHI 2.0’s beak, and bops its top hat to start the selection process. It’s not long before the machine snaps down hard on his finger, buzzing angrily. “Happy now?” Banri asks, nursing his sore finger and glaring at Itaru. One of these days he's going to claim for damages and spend the rest of his life hopping between beaches on Guam.

“Mm, not really.” Itaru’s brow creases. “All this means is that a match wasn’t found in the database, right? Maybe you just haven’t scanned the right signal yet.”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now,” Banri says, a bit thrown off. He’d thought this would be the end of it. Itaru is a much better coworker than he is a client, and Banri misses being able to chill with Itaru during lunch breaks, misses battling him under the table while Sakyo’s not looking. Ever since Itaru got hooked on W3!, he’s done nothing but gloat over how great his Wanren is. It makes Banri’s gut clench unpleasantly. He’d even downloaded the game himself to try and bring his buddy back to reality, but Itaru hadn’t seemed interested at all, even though Banri had raised his NEO to be the biggest, longest worm on the farm.

Itaru grabs one electrode and attaches it to Banri’s arm. He pulls a bun from under his shirt - really, why had he prepared a bun in advance?! - and stuffs it down the machine’s throat, then sticks his own hand in its beak.

“Hold on,” Banri starts, but it’s too late. There’s a reason he hasn’t tested himself yet, and it’s not just because he dislikes the idea of being with someone based on a violent machine with bad taste in buns. It’s just, he’s already got someone in mind, and he doesn’t care whether they’re his supposed soulmate or not because he’d choose them either way. On the other hand, he knows this person. They act dry and casual, but people are drawn to MANKAI Matches for a reason, and Banri doesn't think of himself as a romantic but if you've signed up to bring people together it's because there's a part of you that yearns to see couples form real, genuine connections. Maybe he won't match with anyone, and he can go back to worrying about more mundane matters, such as Hyodo's constant insubordination, but if he does, the person Banri's into - if the person sitting in front of him right now - will never agree to go out with him.

Banri isn't willing to take that chance. Unfortunately for him, KAME-KICHI 2.0 doesn't care about what he is or isn't willing to do. It squawks loudly and ascends to the ceiling. Banri’s heart, on the other hand, has sunk right through his shoes and into the ground. He watches the mechanical bird begin to circle around the cubicle and prays with all his heart that the name leaving its mouth will be -

“Itaru! Itaru! Itaru!”

On instinct, Banri throws himself over the desk to grab Itaru’s tie, just in case he’s thinking of running. He hadn't expected this chance, but now that he’s got it, he sure isn’t going to let it pass him by.

Contrary to his expectations, though, Itaru doesn’t seem surprised at all. “You can let go of me,” he says, between snorts of laughter, and only then does Banri realise how ridiculous he looks splayed across the desk in his ten-thousand yen leopard-print work suit. He coughs in a poor attempt to regain his dignity.

“Well, you heard the bird!” His heart is still thudding in his chest; what if Itaru decides to reject KAME-KICHI 2.0’s decision after all? If Itaru’s name is already on the register, that means he’s already entered his data to try and find a soulmate. Banri hadn’t known at all.

Itaru puts a hand on Banri’s head. He looks at Banri with the same fond gaze he’s been eyeing Wanren the worm with, and Banri doesn’t particularly appreciate the implications of that, but it’s still a look that makes his heart soar. “You’re really dense, you know?”

Banri lets out a squawk not unlike the one KAME-KICHI 2.0 had uttered just a minute prior. “Excuse me?!”

“I can’t believe this is what it took to convince you,” Itaru mutters. “You really are a romantic, after all. Well, whatever. Who cares, as long as I get you in the end.”

He sure looks like he cares, in Banri’s personal opinion. In fact, he looks like he’s working himself up to a good sulk. “This isn’t what convinced me,” Banri blurts out hastily. “I thought you’d be more likely to care, actually. I’ve liked you for ages. I just...didn’t know you liked me?”

“What?” It’s itaru’s turn to squawk. “I couldn’t have been more obvious if I stalked into your cubicle and bribed KAME-KICHI 2.0 to show definitively that the two of us were soulmates, which, as a matter of fact, I did!”

“You can bribe KAME-KICHI 2.0?” Banri asks, knowing full well he’s focussing on the wrong thing.

Itaru actually stamps his foot. “Of course you can! In any case, I can’t believe you didn’t notice! The whole company noticed! I thought you were just ignoring me!”

“How was I supposed to know?” Banri argues. “You never said anything!”

“I named my worm after you!” Itaru yells, jabbing at his phone screen. “I named my best worm after you! And I told you he was cute!”

“I…” Banri feels like there’s a lot he could say to that, but he’s still stuck on the confirmation that Itaru thinks he’s… “You think I’m cute?”

Itaru slumps back in his chair. He puts his head in his hands. “Yes,” he says, sounding utterly exhausted. “Yes, I think you’re cute.”

“Oh,” says Banri. His cheeks are very, very warm, but at least the tips of Itaru’s ears are too. “That’s good.”

“Just shut up for now, would you,” Itaru says, sighing. “We’re going out now, okay? And give me your phone. I really do want to check whether Wanren has an e-soulmate.”


End file.
